Before living out his last years in Nice, confined to a small bed by the sea, Henri Matisse traveled extensively. And the sea, it so happened, was a fixture in his work—from his early years on the Atlantic coast of Brittany, where he painted the Bay of Biscay, to his depictions of the seaside town of Collioure in the early 1900s. In the 1930s, Matisse’s shorter trips to Tahiti would propel his most significant decade. This exhibition is the first to examine the significance of the ocean across the artist’s career. Don’t miss the lovely Bathers with a Turtle, an evocative painting of three naked women who congregate around the tiny animal. —Elena Clavarino